My take on the US elections 2016

I’ve worked in the heart of two capitals on my professional life. Every now and then there were well-known people who came to have dental treatment done at our practice. Millionaires, pop-stars, politicians. Some of them I saw regularly and got a pretty good idea of the person behind the public figure.

There has been lots of discussion about the presidential elections in the US. Which candidate is the best one to be the number one leader in the world (was tempted to use the Master of the Universe comparison again, but managed to hold my tongue)? Who definitely should not be elected, let alone to be a candidate? Clinton, Sanders, Cruz, Trump… One of them will be elected.

But how do the US citizens know if the candidate is able to look after the country and it’s people? Do they keep the promises they make? The time after the elections often reveal that the promises were just promises and they were made only to win votes. Highly annoying in my opinion.

But guess what? I have an answer for that problem.

Let’s make the dental records of the candidates available for everyone to see. I mean every detail from the charts to the dentist’s/hygienist’s reports of the visits.

Why?

What we record on every visit is the state of the mouth. The amount of plaque, calculus and bleeding. We record the interview of the oral hygiene habits and the recommendations given. Often we write to the patient record the state of the oral hygiene.

OH good

OH poor

OH needs improving

In my opinion it tells a lot about any person if a visit after visit the patient’s records state that patient’s oral hygiene is poor and that the patient has been given recommendations and information but there has not been improvement in oral hygiene.

If the person is not able to look after her/himself (for any reason), how is she/he able to look after the whole nation? This comes to my mind every time I see a familiar face of a politician in the papers. A politician who I have unsuccessfully tried to put in the right path in dental health for many years.